When the community awakens to the necessity for sanitary conditions in the environment of every girl and honestly seeks the solution of the problems of economic injustice; when the educational system seeks to prepare its girls for the life they must live; when laws for the regulation of labor for girls are made in the interest of the girl herself; when the community makes it possible for its girls to play in safety and makes provision for friendless and lonely girlhood; when mothers instruct their daughters in the most important facts of life, parents exercise protective authority and the church provides adequate assistance in the task of moral and religious instruction, then, and not till then, will the girl receive her rights.

And the girl’s religion?  The girl is naturally religious.  Without religion no girl comes into her own.  Whenever and wherever religion concerns itself with the rights of a girl it becomes a girl’s religion to which she can pledge body, mind and soul.  For the coming of that religion the world of girlhood eagerly waits.

II

THE HANDICAPPED GIRL

They were both handicapped, as a careful observer could tell at a glance.  One stood behind the counter, the other in front of it examining the toys she was about to purchase for a Christmas box for some young cousins in the country.  She had not been able to find just what she wanted and was impatient in voice and manner as she explained to the girl on the other side of the counter what she had hoped to find.  She was extravagantly gowned in a fashion not at all in good taste for morning shopping, but she was pretty and her fair complexion, her shining hair, soft and well cared for, the beautiful fur thrown back over her shoulders fascinated the other girl and filled her heart with envy.  She was pale and anemic, her hair was dark and there was barely enough of it to “do up” even when helped out by the puffs she had bought from the counter on the opposite side.  The weather had been bitterly cold and she was suffering from sore throat and headache.  She had turned up the collar of her thin coat but it had failed to protect her and she was thinking of that as she looked at the fur.  She was worn out by the strain of the Christmas season, had slept late, and then rushed to the store with only a cup of coffee to help her do the work of the morning.  She did not care much whether the girl before her found the toys she wanted or not.  Toys seemed such a small part of life and Christmas aroused in her all sorts of conflicting emotions.  It was winter and life looked very hard, as it can look to a girl of fourteen upon whom poverty had laid a heavy hand and whose life has been robbed by the sins and misfortunes of others, who has been handicapped from the beginning.